Mardi Gras melee leaves 30 injured

AUSTIN {AP} About 30 people were injured, including a police officer, after some participants in weekend Mardi Gras festivities began throwing beer bottles, starting fights, and smashing windows.

An officer with the Austin Police Department sustained a cut and was treated and released from Brackenridge Hospital early Sunday morning. Five others also were treated and released from the hospital, including one man who was stabbed several times in the back.

Austin police arrested 35 early Sunday and another 21 early Saturday on charges ranging from indecent exposure to public intoxication.

Police used tear gas and shot rubber pellets to disperse the crowd of partygoers Sunday morning, estimated at about 100,000 people.

"There were people in the crowd going to dumpsters in alleys and pulling bottles out and throwing them at police," witness Halley Cornell told the Austin American-Statesman. "Then police started storming toward them and spraying pepper spray. It was a stampede situation."

The arrests occurred mostly on Sixth Street, a five-block area of Austin packed with restaurants, bars and nightclubs.